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North Africa and the Near and Middle East

I understand the genuine anxieties that the hon. Lady is voicing. However, she must accept that Fatah and the Palestinian Authority have made it clear that they are talking about negotiation more or less on the 1967 borders, and that anything beyond the 1967 borders of Palestine must therefore be Israel. That is an implicit, if not explicit, recognition of Israel's absolute right to exist. By responding so aggressively to the peaceful and diplomatic approach to the United Nations made by the Fatah administration—by responding with extended settlements and threats to the economic and financial viability of the Palestinian Authority—Israel is surely playing into the hands of the very extremists, bomb-makers and rocket-makers to whom the hon. Lady is referring.